


leave me your wake to remember you by.

by tasha (lanekim)



Series: bruises on my knees for you [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Platonic Female/Male Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanekim/pseuds/tasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he talks about her in conversation, he usually just refers to her as she, her. Everyone always knows who it is he’s talking about regardless. No point in adding salt to the wound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	leave me your wake to remember you by.

She is memorialized as _a very brave young woman_.

That’s what Jack calls her, anyways. When he talks about her in conversation, he usually just refers to her as _she_ , _her_. Everyone always knows who it is he’s talking about regardless. No point in adding salt to the wound.

Sometimes—rarely, _rarely_ —he calls her _Miriam_ , but her name always comes out sounding strangled. If she were there, she’d insist on being _Miriam Lass_ , because maybe a bit of distance would do him good. (He wouldn’t listen to her anyway; it’s not his way, never been his way, not the kind of man he is.) But of course, Miriam is _not_ there and that’s the problem.

Jack is Jack, though, and he’s got a _code_ and he knew her. The rest of the FBI, however, tends not to be quite so delicate, so he goes on calling her Miriam in a voice that’s much too soft to be his own and they go on avoiding the topic—she’s just a _topic_ now, a goddamned _concept_ —whenever Jack is within hearing distance.

She becomes _Jack Crawford’s lost trainee_ to most of them. Sometimes _Lass, Miriam_ when Will Graham reviews her files with Beverly Katz or Hannibal Lecter or Alana Bloom or—once, just once—Brian Zeller. But she’s just a case file even then, no more a person than most of the dusty manila folders attributed to the Chesapeake Ripper.

Jack doesn’t think about it—it’s a bad idea, he’s trained for this, he never lets himself linger too long on her name—but in the back of this mind there’s a thought that forms: how much she would hate it. Hate not being a person, hate being known for anything but her own intelligence, courage, achievements. She hated it then; but of course, she was still alive then. Miriam Lass can’t feel outrage because she’s dead. And there’s nothing anyone can do to change that.

Still, Jack feels outrage for her in a remote corner of his mind because she deserved better— _deserves_ better, really. Deserves to be _the_ very brave young woman, deserves to be _Miriam_ , deserves to be anything but _the trainee Jack Crawford lost two years ago_. Because _God damn it_ , she was nothing of Jack Crawford’s.

She was Miriam Lass. She was brave and reckless and intelligent and strong-willed. She hated regulations and turkey sandwiches and coffee and romcoms and the polo student uniform and having to buy paperbacks instead of hardcovers. She biked to the academy most mornings, and the only makeup she ever wore was brown eyeliner, a bit of mascara. She liked cherries and smelled like cucumber soap and loved wearing professional clothes. And, Jack sometimes remembers a bit bitterly, she loved being alive more than most anyone he’d ever met.

She was Miriam Lass; and she never belonged to anyone--least of all Jack Crawford.

**Author's Note:**

> The relationship between Jack and Miriam has always intrigued me, so I'm likely to continue writing short works exploring their relationship--hence the series.  
> Both of them are incredibly underrated.  
> (Work titled is take from the song "Boats & Birds" by Gregory and the Hawk. Series title is taken from the lyrics to the Chairlift song, "Bruises.")


End file.
